


Material Witness—A Taste of Honey [A Chill Goes Through Her Veins 1 x 05]

by Polly_Lynn



Series: Material Witness [13]
Category: Castle
Genre: Angst, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-20
Updated: 2014-06-20
Packaged: 2018-02-05 11:57:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1817662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polly_Lynn/pseuds/Polly_Lynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"She forgets herself every once in a while, and that feels like a miracle. It's taken weeks for even that much, and he's hungry for it already. He really, really likes when she forgets herself and gives him something. A gesture or a name or the face she makes at the thought of black coffee."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Material Witness—A Taste of Honey [A Chill Goes Through Her Veins 1 x 05]

**Author's Note:**

> References to Flowers for your grave (1 x 01) here. 
> 
> I wrote this when I'd wrapped around to season 1 again in my rewatches. This is such a pivotal episode that I find new things to love and be interested in every time. This time around, I was struck by the fact that Castle clearly could have found out a lot about Beckett by other means, but he hasn't. And, of course, by the fact that they really hit their Tracy/Hepburn stride in this episode.
> 
> I did play with the timeline. On canvas, they don't go on the "field trip" until the morning after Beckett visits the loft for the first time, and then they're chasing leads all the next day. Here, I've gotten Castle out of his tragic Grimace sweater and into respectable clothing so that the scene at Roger's apartment takes place immediately after their conversation in the office and the rest of the lead chasing occurs the next morning. I hope you'll forgive me.
> 
> This is the twelfth story in this series. They're loosely linked one-shots that can be read independently and in any order you like.

He's frustrated.

She frustrates him in all kinds of ways.

Some of them are fun.

Some of them are more or less extended foreplay. He's pretty convinced they are, anyway, and he's all over that.

So to speak.

He's all over it, even if he's surprised by just _how_ extended it's turning out to be.

But right now? This is not foreplay. This is not the fun kind of frustration at all.

They're driving back from Jersey, and she's pissed.

She's _pissed_. Not irritated. Not annoyed. Not bothered. He's been riding along with irritated, annoyed, and bothered for weeks now, and that's not what this is.

She's _pissed._ It's new. It's interesting. It has potential.

He makes a mistake.

_That what happened to your dad?_

And just like that, she's not pissed any more. She's not anything.

She closes down so suddenly—so absolutely—that he blinks. His mind stumbles and the words jerk back. They hit him in the back of the throat like he's run full tilt into something he never saw coming. That he still can't quite see, even after the fact.

She glances at him. Takes her eyes off the road and it's not even anger. Or anger is the least of it. And then she won't look at him at all, and it seems like all he can see is her. Alone, even though a minute ago . . .

A minute ago.

He cringes even before the close confines of the car swallow up the words.

_That what happened to your dad?_

It's so _clumsy._

Like she's going to just blurt it out. Like Kate Beckett is going to lay her life story at his feet because he makes one clever fucking guess. Because he pushes the right button.

He'd like to kick himself. He'd like to apologize. He'd like to rewind the last sixty seconds of their lives. For once, he'd like to keep the observation from leaving his mouth before he has a chance to think things through.

And _that_ is fucking frustrating.

Because he's not big on that. Thinking things through.

This is his bread and butter. Observation, provocation, reaction. Like every person in his life—old and new—is made of buttons to push.

And he gets away with it. It's been a long time and a lot of money ago since anyone has really objected to his particular brand of harassment. He's a best-selling novelist and everyone loves to think they're interesting. That their story might surprise him.

Observation, provocation, reaction. It's how he works. How he builds his characters from the inside out. How he puts them in motion.

But with her—in moments like these—he catches himself. Uncharacteristic apologies on his lips and his finger paused over the metaphorical button. Second thoughts about pushing, even if he does it anyway most of the time.

Even if he pushes harder than he might've in the first place. Harder even than he usually does.

Because the second thoughts make him angry. He hates the sour taste of apology and this sudden, inconvenient sense that maybe he ought to think things through.

That maybe she doesn't want to hear every smug observation or self-congratulatory insight about what makes her tick. That maybe she's earned her privacy. That she deserves the kindness of him keeping his mouth shut for once.

It's frustrating.

Not the fun kind.

* * *

He taps the space bar for the hundredth time. It's a game. He counts the number of times the cursor blinks. He watches the screen for the tell-tale fade just before the screensaver comes up. Then and only then does he let himself hit the space bar.

He tells himself he's thinking about the case. He is. Kind of.

He tells himself he's thinking about the book. He isn't. Not really.

He's tying his own hands in a lot of ways here. It's been so long since he's written at all that anything would be good enough. Anything would do.

He's done it before. Dashed something off to meet his obligations. To clear out the attic of his mind and get on with it.

But he wants this book—her book—to be more than good enough. He wants it to be more than just the next thing.

He turns his mind on a diagonal. He thinks about the two together. The case. The book. Melanie. Nikki.

_Kate._

It hasn't been a total loss. The case. Him pushing her buttons. Her shutting him down. Even if he still has a strange ache when he thinks about the blankness of her in that moment.

_My dad?_

It's not a total loss. He has something here. Backstory. But it's frustrating. It's so little. Hardly anything more than he had weeks ago. Confirmation, maybe, but not much more.

And the thing is, he doesn't really need this from her. There's another way to go about this. It's not his first choice, but it would get the job done.

He doesn't need the backstory from her. He _wants_ it.

He wants her to open up.

She does sometimes. She forgets herself every once in a while, and that feels like a miracle. It's taken weeks for even that much, and he's hungry for it already.

He really, _really_ likes when she forgets herself and gives him something. A gesture or a name or the face she makes at the thought of black coffee.

It makes him sit up, eager for more. For whatever she'll give him.

It's kind of crazy. He can't decide what kind of frustrating it is. Good, bad, or indifferent.

It's been years since he wanted to hear anyone's version of themselves. He spends a lot of time trying to shut people up. Trying to head off their life stories at the pass.

He knows them anyway. Better than they do. What they're finessing or playing up. What they're in denial about. Most people are no mystery to anyone but themselves.

Sometimes he thinks she's not so different. In some ways, she's not. She has a story. He had it right weeks ago. During the Tisdale case. The first time she shut him down. The first time he ran up against the hard boundary around her and blinked.

He had the broad strokes, anyway.

_Something happened. Not to you. You're wounded, but you're not that wounded._

He could write Nikki today if he were content for it to be good enough. If he were content with the broad strokes.

The little he knows about her already makes her more interesting than most people. Maybe more interesting than most characters he's written.

What he knows about her should be more than enough, but it's not.

_Cute trick. But don't think you know me._

It's frustrating.

He misses the moment. The last blink of the cursor and the quick drain of light. He's distracted and the screensaver beats him.

He jams his thumb down hard and brings back the empty page.

It feels like an omen. A sign that it might be time to give in. To act on the reality that he doesn't _need_ this from her. That it might be time to get over wanting it from her.

But he likes to tell himself that she wants it, too. That she wants him to ask.

When it's the good kind of frustrating—the kind that's like foreplay—he likes to tell himself that she _wants_ him to draw her out.

Most people do, after all. But Kate Beckett is not most people.

She doesn't want him to ask. She doesn't want anyone to ask.

And it's not like he _has_ to ask. Not her, anyway.

It has to be a matter of record, right?

It's a personal tragedy—immediate family, most likely—but one that would have left a mark on the wider world.

Even in New York—even with two murders a day—someone would have caught the story. There must be newspaper articles. Interviews and follow-ups. Editorials on the anniversary. Solemn-faced reporters at the scene, sharp-tongued and indignant that the case has gone cold. That the system has failed.

An unsolved homicide—and it has to be a homicide—with a white, upper-middle-class victim. That wouldn't go unnoticed. It wouldn't go without comment.

And even without the media, he has options. He's not sure why he has to keep reminding himself of that.

Then he thinks about her. That moment in the car and how far away she looked. So far from anyone. Alone.

_My dad?_

It's where she lives. Absolutely alone in some nameless state.

But it wasn't always that way. He has to remind himself of that.

It's not always that way now. Not quite.

She's close with her team. Ryan and Esposito and the Captain in a way. It's . . . that's what's keeping him up nights lately.

_Well._

It's one thing keeping him up, anyway.

The way they have this absolute faith in one another. The way none of them has to look over their shoulder or ask twice. The way there's never an instant spent second guessing each other.

It's something beyond family. Beyond the closeness of lovers. It's the stark intimacy of people who know every door they walk through might be the one they never walk out of.

He wants to capture that. He needs to capture that if this book is going to be any good at all.

And he wants it to be good.

He wants to capture that rock-solid belief in her team. The unshakeable certainty they all have on the job.

He wants to capture the fact that she's alone. For all that, there's a hard boundary around most of who she is.

She's alone.

Still.

As far as backstory goes, they have to know something. She didn't get where she is as quickly as she did without a story. Even if it's half fiction, half speculation, and a single iota of truth, they have to know something.

He can ask them.

Esposito and Ryan might be tricky. In their different ways they're protective of her. Wary of the whole arrangement he has for her sake, even if personally they're kind of into it. Even if they'd willingly tell their own stories.

But Montgomery likes him. Likes the Knicks tickets and face time with the Mayor, at least, and he's eager to help.

He could ask them. All of them. Any of them. Even if it's just the basics, they'd know _something._ Whether he's searching for Beckett or some other name. The basic time frame.

That part's tricky. The when of it. Whether it's going to be a web search in the comfort of his own boxers or something further back. He doesn't think so, though. He doesn't think she's lived with it so long that he's looking at nothing but physical clippings and microfiche. That's not where the watch and the ring lead him.

They _could_ be old, of course. The ring, especially, is something he can spin that way.

Something too big for a little girl's fingers, so she threads it on to a long chain and it becomes a habit. Wearing it next to her skin like that. Growing into it and still keeping it around her neck, where it doesn't quite disappear under her no-nonsense work clothes.

It could go back a long way, but he doesn't think so. He thinks she would have broken the habit. That the uncompromising woman she grew up to be would have put away childish things. That she would have held on to them, but there would have been one moment when she stopped. One morning when she put them away for good.

He thinks about the car ride. She was _pissed._ Her body all upright lines and sharp, furious angles. She was pissed enough to forget herself. To give him something.

That tells him the same thing. The ring. The watch. That anger. They all lead him in the same direction. These aren't wounds she's been nursing since childhood.

Her fury at Sloan and his ilk. It's . . . complex. There's a through narrative to it. The bottomed-out disappointment of an adult. The sophisticated rage of a professional who knows how it should have gone. How it ought to go.

It has a logic and coherence from end to end that tells him she was older when it happened. Not the woman she became, but the one she could have been. Not a child.

Everything he knows points to this being pretty simple.

A web search. The cursor blinking in a different box and less than a second to most of what he needs. From there, an informed fishing expedition with the people who know her best.

But he stares at the blinking cursor.

He stares at the blank page.

He doesn't open a new browser tab.

He doesn't need it from her, but he wants it.

* * *

He doesn't know what this is.

He really doesn't have the faintest idea what switch got flipped. What button someone pushed that has her on his doorstep.

In his office.

Letting him get away with Batman references.

He doesn't even know what possesses him to go there. To needle her about origin stories. He's still reeling from the moment in the car. Sore all over from running up against that thing that's not even anger and more than a little gun shy about it all.

Even though she started it. Even though she forgot herself and let him have something, and . . . she's a Batman fan?

_Well._

She lets him get away with it, but then the storyboard draws her eye and he panics. It's totally innocent. He really doesn't have much beyond major plot points.

And . . . _oh_. The picture of her in the Nikki Heat slot. That might not thrill her.

The picture is probably the worst of it, but he panics like she'll know he was prying. Thinking about prying. Except he wasn't. Because it's not prying, and he didn't even do it anyway.

He slapped the laptop closed and wheedled and pleaded until Alexis rolled her eyes and suited up for a laser tag battle. A distraction.

He didn't do it, but he panics anyway. Like she'll know.

He's annoyed by it. The panic. Briefly annoyed, because so what if she _did_ know? It's not prying. He would have been completely within his rights. It's not like a Google search is some kind of epic invasion of privacy.

But he doesn't want her to know that he even thought about it, and there it is. The bad kind of frustration. He'd really like to kick that to the curb right now.

Because this is suddenly Fantasy Beckett perched on the edge of his desk.

Ok, one of the very _tame_ versions of Fantasy Beckett.

And there's a little more of the not-fun frustration.

Because he legitimately has an actual Fantasy Beckett who qualifies just by showing up. By admitting she wants more than just a good ending. That she needs the story. For herself. For Melanie Cavanaugh's family. For that someday when her daughters will want to know what happened to their mother.

She qualifies by giving him anything at all.

* * *

He really, _really_ doesn't know what this is.

They're back at Roger's apartment. Because she didn't just ask for his help, she took his advice. She _listened_.

And now all of a sudden, she's so _easy_.

This isn't just her forgetting herself. This is her playing along.

This is the good kind of frustration, and it's not just good for him.

 _We are_ not _married!_

It's so _immediate._ Like a reflex. And the absolute refusal to even _pretend_ to be married?Demanding a divorce? A _pretend_ divorce?

 _So_ easy.

And then it all comes together.

His lines in her mouth. His body moving through her crime scene. The two of them writing the story. Acting it out

It's like . . .

Well, it's like sex, isn't it?

If the good kind of frustration is foreplay, this is like really, _really_ good sex with someone who already knows a hundred ways to make you scream and wants to find a hundred more in a hurry.

He swears she's playing along. That all of a sudden she's having a good time, too.

That she likes the way he makes her scream.

That she's gathering evidence because she wants to make _him_ scream.

He doesn't know what this is at all, but he's in.

He is _so_ in.

* * *

She drops him off.

He almost does something stupid. He's on the verge of several something stupids. _Somethings stupid?_

His hand is on the door of her cruiser, and there's nothing keeping him. Nothing except the fact that he's not ready for this to end. He's not ready to say goodnight and show up tomorrow and be back to the not-fun kind of frustration.

He wants this from her. More of whatever this whole night has been, and he has no idea how they even got here.

He's not ready for it to end, and there's a growing list stupid things on his mind. Each and every one seems like a better option than getting out of this car and letting her drive away. A better option than leaving her alone.

He almost asks her out again. Up for a drink. Or out. Out is better. No mothers, no mud masks, and no memory of his tragic case of laser tag head. Out. Wherever she wants. Whatever she wants, so long as this doesn't end.

He almost kisses her.

Almost tries to kiss her, anyway.

He thinks about trying to kiss her. Because whatever that was back at Roger's apartment—whatever this has been tonight—he's not at all confident that an attempted kiss at this point ends with all his body parts intact.

And then he almost dives right past all of that. Asking her out. Kissing her. He almost dives right past that and asks if she hasn't had enough of the foreplay. If this whole field trip was good for her, too. If she wants to climb into the back seat right now and make him scream.

That seems like the best option of all, and he wonders if it's something about her car. If there's a leak in the exhaust system that makes him stupid or something. Because the things he almost does are definitely getting progressively stupider and she's giving him an odd look.

She's raising her eyebrow and inclining her head toward his hand on the door.

He blurts out a goodnight and, of course, trips over the curb getting out. He doesn't quite go down. He jams his wrist catching himself on a fire hydrant.

She calls after him. She asks if he's ok, and it sounds exactly like an invitation to making her scream in the back seat, but he's reasonably sure that's only because he's stupid right now. He's reasonably sure she could be cursing his name and damning him and all his issue to the eternal fires of hell and, right now, it would still sound like an invitation to make her scream.

He shuts the door on her. He shuts the door on the stupid and heads down the street.

He makes the corner and looks back, just for a second. She's still sitting there. The car is idling and she's behind the wheel. She's staring down the street after him and he wonders why for a second. For a second, there's this little flare of hope that maybe she's thinking about stupid things, too.

But she puts the car in gear then and pulls away from the curb. She doesn't look at him as she passes. She keeps her eyes front and shakes her head a little.

He watches her go, anchored to his spot on the corner and hope sputters out.

She's not thinking about doing something stupid. She's passing by.

She's passing by and probably wondering why he just strode purposefully down the street, away from his building.

* * *

He runs with it. Almost literally. He doesn't turn around. He just keeps walking.

He's not ready to go home yet.

He's not ready to sit by, listening to his kid and his mother do the postmortem on Beckett's visit to the loft. He's not ready to fend off the speculation and not-so-subtle hints.

He's not ready to give up the buzz he still has going.

He's not ready for that at all.

It's late and a lot of the storefronts are dark. It's fine, though. It's mostly fine. He's not really looking for company.

He's not really looking for something to do, but he can't help but notice the crowd in front of one of the few places that's still lit up.

This storefront is neat, if a little run-down. There's a thrown-together stall on the sidewalk in front of the windows with a patio umbrella propped precariously above it. There's a young woman in slim-fitting black behind the counter pouring samples of something into minuscule plastic shot glasses.

He grabs one and downs it without thinking. Anything that comes in a shot glass seems like a good idea at the moment. Which probably means it's actually a really bad idea.

It's thick, whatever it is. Unexpectedly sweet, and at first it's unpleasant. It's too much up front and he makes a face. But then it settles on his tongue. It reaches the back corners of his mouth and he likes something about it.

The woman is in mid-patter. She has the unenviable task of grabbing the attention of Manhattanites with someplace better to be. He doesn't want to interrupt, but he's curious.

He gestures toward the bottle and she nods at him with a half smile. His fingers close around another tiny cup. He sips it this time. It's better that way. The sweetness makes more sense and he can taste other, subtler things underneath. Pleasant herbs and floral notes. Sharp spice that burns a little, but complements the sweetness.

It's better until he reaches for the bottle. He turns the label toward him and almost chokes.

It's simple, but well done. It has the no-nonsense look of something done in-house at a smallish business. The lone graphic is a pale blue full moon. Stamped above is the name of the winery—meadery actually—and below, a single word: DESIRE.

It jolts through him. His mind puts a name to it. That buzz and whatever this is. Whatever this has been since she showed up at the door. Whatever this has been for weeks.

It's not news. She's gorgeous. She's smart. She's ridiculously good at her job. She's annoyingly straitlaced at work and, he's starting to suspect, not _at all_ that way off the clock.

He can make her scream and she frustrates the hell out of him in all kinds of ways.

Of course it's desire.

It shouldn't be news, but it shakes him somehow.

He takes a third shot and the woman behind the stall gives him a slightly dirty look.

He starts guiltily and wraps his hand around the bottle. He's fully prepared to buy it in penance, but his mind snags on something.

She's multitasking. Going on with her spiel and making sure that he's not some shady character looking to get very slowly lit on honey wine in teeny tiny cups. He hasn't been listening at all up to this point, but now he catches words like _story_ and _legend_ and _tradition._

She's talking about the mysterious origins of mead. How it shows up millennia ago all around the world and no one really knows who invented it or how it might have traveled so far and wide.

He knows this. Or he knew it and he'd forgotten it until now. Research for something he discarded a long while back. His brief flirtation with archaeology-based mystery, maybe.

He knows this, but he holds his breath. There's something else at the edge of his memory. Something that nags, and he thinks it's coming next.

It does.

It's bullshit. He remembers that now. Folk etymology about the term honeymoon coming from an ancient Babylonian tradition of a bride's father gifting the couple a month's worth of mead to ensure their first child would be a boy.

It's bullshit and he doesn't care a bit. It's a good story. It's a _great_ story.

He grabs a bottle.

He grabs two.

Because Beckett needs a wedding present.

* * *

He's late the next morning.

He gets a little caught up in the wrapping. The store gave him one of those adorable rustic-looking paper bags with crimson ribbon handles. They swaddled the bottle in an impressive amount of tissue paper, but he wants to add something.

He rifles through his wrapping paper locker and wonders why he even has one. If it's normal or healthy for a man his age to have such a thing. If this is necessary in life for any human on the planet.

He pushes the thought aside, though, and hunts it down. A roll of silver foil paper with flocked velvet wedding bells. They smatter the paper two by two, joined together with linked rings at the top. Exactly what he wants.

He cuts a sheet and rolls the bottle in it. He gathers the excess into an artful spray of silvery paper around the neck. He cuts a handful of lengths of ribbon to tie it off and curls each one carefully with scissors.

By the time he restores the whole thing to its rustic tissue-paper-and-shopping-bag cocoon, he has a couple of annoyed texts from her.

He's late enough that he misses her at the precinct. He stands by her desk dithering. Another text comes in. The address of the delivery company with no comment.

He stares at the text, bag dangling from his fingers.

He hasn't really thought this part through. He sort of pictured himself waltzing in and dropping it on her desk without comment. Sinking into his chair—because it's _totally_ his chair—with the smug smile he knows drives her the good kind of crazy.

He'd pictured himself just leaning back—a lot cooler and more composed than he's been around her in recent memory—waiting for her to open it. To sputter at him and be _so_ easy. To get right back to the buzz from last night.

 _We are_ not _married._

That's what he'd sort of pictured, but he's late. She's already out, and he may not be entirely over his episode of stupid, but he knows it's a bad idea to show up a froofily wrapped "wedding present" when she's chasing down a lead.

He's at a loss, though. He doesn't want to just leave it on her desk, either.

He's about to tug open her desk drawer. The deep one at the bottom where she keeps a bag sometimes, but his hand shrinks back at the last second. He wasn't lying about the novelist's habit. He's an inveterate snoop. He's had no compunction at all about going through some seriously high-level underwear drawers, but he can't make himself do it. Not with her.

He straightens again and he doesn't even know what kind of frustration this is. If it's good or bad or foreplay or sex or an unlikely late-in-life conscience springing up.

His phone dings again. She's going to kill him if he doesn't catch up with her. And he wants to. More than he wants to play this little joke or whatever it is—more than he wants to pull her pigtails—he wants to catch up with her.

He wants the two of them to chase down the story. Together.

He spies her trash can then, and that will have to do. He slides the bag as far under his chair as it will go and nudges the trash can in front of it. He walks around the chair and eyeballs the arrangement from every angle. He ignores the odd stares he's getting from passersby in the bullpen. It'll have to do.

He goes to chase down the story.

He goes to catch her.

* * *

It's a long day. Both kinds of long.

He thinks for a minute like they might actually be out of there at a decent hour once they have Wyler doing the walk of shame down to lock up. He nudges her trash can and reassures himself that the bag is still there.

He picks up the case file and half listens to Beckett and Montgomery as his eyes wander over it. He's mostly stalling. He wants Montgomery to clear out so he can give it to her. The wedding present.

He's not sure _why_ he wants Montgomery to clear out. It's funnier with an audience. It will drive her crazier with an audience. An audience will have her absolutely hell bent on making him scream. An audience is good.

But he waits anyway. He tosses a pun their way. Montgomery chuckles, and if he's not mistaken, Beckett only thinks about killing him for the briefest of seconds.

His heart kicks up a notch as Montgomery strolls away and she asks him to come with her. She wants him there when she gives the story to the Davidsons and that's . . . it's a lot more than he would have thought likely twenty-four hours ago.

He sets the file on the desk and reaches down for the bag. He has second thoughts about doing this right now. Frustrating second thoughts, but he can't count on coming back to the precinct after White Plains. He's stalling again, trying to make up his mind.

He hears himself say something about the woman with the freezer. He's thinking out loud, not even sure what he's getting at.

He half expects her to snap at him. It's a conversation that inches close to Sloan and that's still pegging her meter. It's still pissing her off.

But she doesn't snap at him. She's quieter about it. It seems to chafe a little less for her now that she's gotten the story that Melanie's parents deserve. That her daughters will want to have someday.

Only she hasn't gotten it. Not the whole story.

They both know it as soon as he says it.

_So, if you're not investigating a murder, why would you talk to the neighbor about a freezer delivery?_

She's quiet on the drive back to Roger's building. They both know already.

They trade off asking Mrs. Marsh questions. It's give and take like yesterday, but there's nothing fun about it. They both know it long before they turn to each other and the grim truth—the real ending—settles over them.

_Ben Davidson._

_Melanie's dad._

She doesn't ask if he's coming with her to White Plains. She points the car that way without comment, and he's grateful. Of course he's going with her. Of course he'll see this through.

There's a dreary kind of gratification in the fact that she doesn't even ask. In the fact that she sits motionless behind the wheel of her cruiser and there's nothing self-conscious about it. She might not be glad he's there—not exactly—but she doesn't mind, and that's something.

Their gazes turn in tandem to the neat lawn and the warm glow of lamplight through the dining room window.

She gives him a strange look when he speaks.

_You could just leave it like this. Sam's dead. The Captain's happy. Those kids look pretty happy._

He doesn't blame her. It sounds like a different version of him. On the surface, anyway. The words without context. That's the version of him she's used to. _Observation, provocation, reaction._

But that's not how he means it. He's not trying to get inside her head. He doesn't care what Nikki would do. He wants . . . something. Some kind of satisfaction for her in this. But there's none to be had.

She seems to know it. That this isn't research. That he hates this ending as much as she does, that's all. She seems to know. Maybe that's why she's looking at him strangely.

She makes her own answer and goes to the door.

Alone.

* * *

It's a long day.

Ben Davidson's interrogation is terrible.

It's terrible how easy it is to see what drove him. The compelling logic of awful circumstance.

It's terrible to see how she understands. She doesn't have to imagine what he's going through. She understands this man all too well.

It's terrible that Davidson is so composed about it. So calculating now. That love for his daughter may have prompted him at first, but it turned into something else along the way. Something grim and cold and passionless.

It's terrible to see him, alone and self-contained. The only state possible for him to do right by his family.

Beckett understands that, too. It's familiar to her. It's terrible.

It shakes him. He slips off to call Alexis. Tells himself that Beckett might need a minute, but the lie isn't particularly convincing. Not even to himself.

But she smiles at him when he tells the other lie. That Alexis missed him. That his Spidey-sense was tingling.

She smiles and then the story is spilling out of her. She's laying it at his feet.

He hasn't pushed a button. He hasn't asked or commented or cajoled. He hasn't done a damned thing and she's telling him.

It's so little. A handful of sentences, brusque and factual, but she's bleeding.

He asks about the watch. He doesn't want to. He hasn't planned to. She's already bleeding, but the question makes its way out of him somehow. _Observation, provocation, reaction._

She answers right away. Like she was expecting it, even if he wasn't.

He hears the word _sober_ and suddenly remembers the bag. He hates himself.

It's messy and immediate and the panic of it occupies his entire field of vision.

He realizes he doesn't even know if she drinks. He realizes he doesn't know the first thing about her.

Shame burns his cheeks. It drags his gaze down for just a second to where the bag sits at his feet and then back up, but she's pulling the ring from beneath her shirt. She's bleeding and she doesn't notice.

He can't move when she's done. When she makes the first joke and he responds in kind. He can't move.

She's going and he hates that. She's standing there alone and he thinks she doesn't have to be. He thinks that if he took a step toward her right now—if he could keep from doing something stupid—he might find himself on the right side of the boundary around her.

But he doesn't know how. He doesn't know the first thing about her and every single thing he might do is stupid.

She's going and it's all he can do to answer back when she razzes him about his flowery goodbyes.

It's all he can do to snipe back that _Night_ is boring.

It's all he can do to choke out the word _Hopeful_ and move an inch closer to where she lives.

Absolutely alone in some nameless state.

* * *

He sits motionless next to her desk for . . . he doesn't know how long.

He's bleeding a little, too. More than a little.

He reaches down for the bag. When he rights himself, Esposito appears in the deserted bullpen. They almost give one another a heart attack.

He kind of wishes they had.

He's raw from it all.

He's raw from the case and the way the right thing and the thing she had to do are so far from one another.

He's raw from her confession. The fact that he's wanted it from her all along. The backstory. That he has it now—from her own lips—and it's still so little.

Not because it's all she'd give him. Because it's all she has.

He's raw because he's had enough of the gap between how things are and how they ought to be.

He asks Esposito, and even while the words are coming out of his mouth, he has no idea how he feels about that.

If it's a mistake.

If it was inevitable.

If it's about him or her.

If he just doesn't want her to be alone.

If what he wants should have anything to do with this at all.

He asks Esposito, and he doesn't expect what comes next. He doesn't expect the hard look and the wordless motion to follow him.

He doesn't expect to find himself in the basement of precinct, hunched at a rickety table, poring over the file by the light of a bare bulb. He doesn't expect to be staggered by photos of a woman who looks so much like her and not like her at all.

He doesn't expect the tight-lipped threats from Esposito, but that answers one thing.

This is a mistake. She doesn't want him to ask. She doesn't want anyone to ask.

He can't stop now, but it's a mistake.

He doesn't expect Esposito to wish him luck.

He doesn't know what he expected, but none of this is it.

He doesn't know how he feels about any of it.

He handles the file long after he's committed it to memory. After he's snapped careful photos of every individual piece and close-ups of even more.

There's so little of it and he can't get over it. That something so awful can be contained like this. A few thin sheets clipped together and no weight at all.

It's a long time before he shakes himself. Before he forces himself through each individual step. Closing the folder. Sliding it back home in the file box and muscling the overstuffed cardboard on to the shelf.

It's a long time before he snaps off the light and flinches as the gate rings shut behind him.

It's late when he climbs the stairs and pushes his way out on to the street.

He should have called a car. He should at least try for a cab, but he hates the thought of the close confines right now.

He hates the though of being in another car. He's not having great luck with them lately.

He walks, even though it's stupid. He walks and his mind wanders. It's heavy and churning and he doesn't know what comes next.

It's probably frustrating. The bad kind of frustrating. But he feels distant from it. Far away and alone.

He almost bumps into the remains of the stall in front of the wine store. It's empty now and the windows are dark. He blinks down at his own hand, surprised to find the bag still there.

He turns away from the storefront.

His feet take him the rest of the way home. They take him across the lobby, down the hallway, and through the mercifully darkened loft.

He's all the way at the back of his closet before he wonders what he's even doing. He's hoisting the bag up on to the highest shelf. He's finding the darkest corner and shoving the bag back and back.

It's done before he wonders what on earth he's going to do with it. When the moment is gone. When that buzzing high was a million years ago and he might have imagined it anyway. He might have imagined her playing along.

It's done before he wonders what kind of frustration this is.

  



End file.
